DPI Sponsors The Center Edge

Tech policy gets made in the center. The rhetoric lives at the edge. This podcast is about the fights in Washington that shape what gets built, who builds it, and who gets to use it. Host Evan Swarztrauber sits down with the regulators, members of Congress, founders, investors, and advocates shaping the debates on AI, Big Tech, data centers, drones, broadband, satellites, national security, and the fights you haven’t heard about yet.

The Digital Progress Institute is proud to sponsor the Center Edge. Check it out!

Space Policy Can’t Run on Dial-Up Speeds

The United States is launching more rockets and deploying more satellites than at any point in history. 15,296 active satellites are now in orbit (a more than tenfold increase from a decade ago); American companies operate more than 10,000 of those satellites, and American companies are launching more satellites than anyone else. In 2024, satellite services, manufacturing, and launch contributed $65.2 billion to the economy. In other words, commercial space is no longer a niche industry; it’s an American mainstay.

Satellite filings have surged, yet outdated regulatory barriers have slowed processing, threatened investment, and delayed deployment—especially in rural and underserved areas where satellite broadband can be transformative. Industry stakeholders are increasingly clear: regulatory delay is both inefficient and a competitive disadvantage.

A 21^st-century industry requires a 21^st-century process. Satellite technology is iterative and fast-moving. Companies deploy constellations on tight timelines, continuously improve systems, and rely on regulatory certainty to secure financing. But the FCC’s review process has historically operated on its own timeline, eking out licenses at dial-up speeds.

Luckily, a bipartisan push to ensure American leadership in the New Space Age is targeting this bottleneck.

The FCC’s $40 Billion Question

The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) occupies some of the most valuable real estate in wireless: 150 megahertz of mid-band spectrum between 3.55 and 3.70 Gigahertz (GHz). Mid-band spectrum has become the backbone of modern wireless networks. But CBRS sits in an awkward position—sandwiched between two high-power commercial bands while operating under far lower power limits.

That experiment has real consequences. In recent auctions, licenses in the adjacent 3.45 GHz band sold for about $0.73 per megahertz-pop, and licenses in the 3.7 GHz C-band sold for about $1.10 per megahertz-pop. By comparison, licenses in the CBRS band sold for about $0.22 per megahertz-pop.

Put differently, if the United States were to auction the CBRS band under the higher-power rules used by its neighbors, it might raise roughly $45 billion for the Treasury. Yet the actual 2020 CBRS auction raised $4.6 billion. In sum, the future of CBRS is a $40 billion question.

AI Must Serve Human Flourishing

As artificial intelligence accelerates into every corner of our economy and daily lives, too often, lawmakers and developers’ focus is on efficiency, speed, and scale. But there is a more foundational question: What do we want from AI?

The answer should be clear. AI exists to promote human flourishing.

Beginning with the founders’ recognition of the “pursuit of happiness” as an unalienable right, American society has long been oriented toward advancing human dignity, prosperity, and the development of individual potential. Technology must always serve that mission, and AI must be developed following core human values. This is especially the case because a developer’s choice of what to optimize, prioritize, and ignore has the capacity to shape the future of our society.

DPI Leads Coalition on Antitrust Reform

DPI led a coalition of 17 public interest organizations–ranging from the American Principles Project to Public Knowledge to the Bull Moose Project–urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reintroduce the bipartisan American Innovation and Choice Online Act (“AICOA”). As the coalition wrote: “AICOA directly addresses one of the most significant remaining gaps: the ability of dominant technology platforms to impose fees and pricing restrictions that raise costs not just on their own marketplaces, but across the entire economy.”

Why Trump’s Tech Defense In The EU Is An ‘America First’ Policy

A fundamental principle of international law is comity—the mutual respect sovereign nations afford one another in enforcing their laws.

For the United States, comity is not an abstraction. It is the predicate for stable trade relationships and predictable cross-border enforcement. When that principle erodes, diplomacy becomes nearly impossible.

Comity is central to the U.S. dispute with the European Union over the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. It is also the basis for the Trump administration’s Section 301 investigation.

A bipartisan approach to protecting children online

Parents across America agree on something fundamental: They should decide what their children download, purchase and use on a smartphone. State legislatures, red and blue alike, are increasingly in agreement.

In 2024, New York enacted legislation requiring social media companies to use age estimation and obtain parental consent before serving algorithmically driven feeds to minors. California has adopted age-assurance requirements for digital services and enacted a separate law requiring parental consent before minors can access certain addictive social media features.

They share a common premise: Children should not be navigating binding digital ecosystems without parental oversight.

That same principle animates the App Store Accountability Act, a law now before Congress and already enacted in four states. The law requires the largest app store providers to verify age and obtain parental consent before minors download apps or make in-app purchases.

When it comes to a vote, the App Store Accountability Act is repeatedly met by overwhelming bipartisan margins. In Utah, 25 of 29 senators and 64 of 75 representatives voted in favor. In Texas, the vote was 30 of 31 senators and 120 of 129 representatives. In Louisiana and Alabama, the legislation passed unanimously.

This bipartisan support is not an accident. It reflects the straightforward legal and economic logic of the proposal.

At its core, the App Store Accountability Act rests on a simple principle: Trillion-dollar corporations should not be entering into binding commercial relationships with minors.

Prof. Meg Leta Jones on App Store Accountability

Protecting children online is more important than ever, with Congress now considering a package of legislation that would address content moderation, data collection, and parental control. In this oped, Georgetown’s Meg Leta Jones dives into the question of whether these efforts square with the First Amendment.

As she explains, while courts once read the penumbras of the First Amendment to shield online platforms from scrutiny, the tide has been turning–especially with the Supreme Court’s Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton case. As she explains: “The Paxton framework suggests a critical distinction: age verification may survive constitutional scrutiny when it enforces restrictions the state has the authority to impose.”

Thayer Talks Tech

DPI President Joel Thayer hopped on the Moment of Truth podcast to talk about Big Tech, the FCC’s Section 230 memo, how Big Tech targeted conservatives for abuse, the European Union’s double standard, and what’s next for Apple, Google, and Nvidia.